An American

by Belle Willey Gue

But Ruth Wakefield was one of those who never sleep right through the dark hours of any night; from her earliest recollection, she had been wide awake, with a clarified vision of the affairs of daily life as well as of those that were quite beyond the world of men and women who were yet embodied, about the hour of two A.M., and, when she had some especially knotty problem to solve, she seldom slept for more than an hour or so at a time, but would waken to a consciousness of the facts of her human existence with a shock that would almost always cause her to jump as if struck a blow, which, indeed, was the exact state of affairs, only the blow was a mental one.

On this one night, having lost the most of the sleep she should have had upon the previous one, her bodily strength was almost entirely exhausted so that she sunk into a deep and dreamless sleep during the first part of the evening and woke, with a start, about nine P.M.

Rising from her bed, as was her custom upon awakening in the night, she approached one of the large windows of her own room facing Havana Harbor; she could see the lights from the various vessels lying at anchor and imagined that she could make out those of the Maine, which, as it represented her own native land to her, was, naturally, of deep interest to her; she fell to imagining how it would seem to return to the United States on that great ship lying so peacefully and appearing to be so stanch and strong in the harbor below her window ... she wondered if it might not be better for her, now that she no longer had the keen interest in Cuba that she had only recently had, to go back to her own country and so possibly forget the dark eyes and lying lips of the man to whom she had given her virginity only to find it flouted and treated with disdain; for, try as she would to vindicate Victorio Colenzo, she was too just and reasonable to deny to herself that he had acted the part of a sneaking villain both to her and to poor, trusting Estrella, who had not had to see her dream of him lying in fragments at her feet, but who still believed that he had spoken the truth to her when he had told her that she was the only woman he had ever loved; she was too young to know that this statement is a regular trite and tried prevarication, common to almost all male lovers.

But Ruth, at present, was laboring under no delusions with regard to the man she had married, although his dead body was still unburied and she had not so much as said a prayer over his remains ... she knew beyond all shadow of doubt that he had been untrue to both of the women he had professed to love in San Domingo, and her mind was much distraught as she sat at her window and, gazed down upon Havana Harbor upon that memorable evening of February fifteenth, eighteen hundred and ninety-eight.

She had been watching a little boat plying back and forth between the wharf and the battleship which she had picked out among the other black hulks in the harbor as being the Maine, and was speculating, idly, what it could be about, as it seemed busily engaged in something of importance, when, all at once, a mighty detonation shook the entire harbor and the adjacent shore, making even her own stout residence tremble, and, where the majestic battleship had, only just a moment before, been a thing of beauty and power, there was nothing but a wild mass of flying débris and a raging furnace of belching, flaming fire.

Ruth Wakefield realized, even as the terrific explosion occurred, that here was a turning point in the affairs of state and that, in all probability, her own country would, after this, become involved in the war that had been raging in Cuba, then, for about three years; it was with mingled feelings of dismay and dread that she surveyed the activity that very soon became apparent both in the harbor and in the city of Havana; she could see the lights of the rescuing boats as they circled about the scene of the wreck and even hear the groans and supplications of some of the severely wounded survivors, for the night was clear and the light wind carried the sounds from the harbor up to her window so that her very acute hearing told her that this was no casual accident, but, in all probability, a carefully planned holocaust in which her own much-loved native land would, inevitably be involved.

Manuello was one of the first to rush out upon the streets of the little village after the terrific noise of the explosion had rolled away; he passed hastily from cottage to cottage asking the inmates if they were aware of the cause of it, for, being a little below the level of Havana Harbor, the inhabitants of San Domingo could not command a view of it.

As no one seemed able to give him any explanation of the disturbing detonation, he even dared to approach one of the block houses held by the Spanish soldiery; here, he found everything in confusion and excitement ... men were hastily arming themselves so as to be in readiness for whatever orders might come from their superiors, and Manuello found no one among them who seemed much better informed than he, himself, was; he imagined that what he had heard had been the result of the consummation of the plans upon which he had stumbled earlier in the evening and started to climb to the top of the hill upon which Ruth Wakefield's residence was located in order to gain a view of Havana Harbor.

Manuello had almost reached the very top of the hill before he realized that he had come out into the night without a weapon of any kind, and, no sooner had he made this disconcerting discovery than he became aware of some sort of movement directly in his rear; wishing to avoid whatever it might be, he hastily concealed himself and waited for the approach of his unseen companion in the darkness; the steps he had heard came along the path hastily, yet steadily, and the owner of them soon appeared; as he passed Manuello, the young fellow made out that the new-comer was none other than the village Priest who, as it seemed likely, was bent upon the same errand as the hidden peon; Father Felix kept on, sturdily, climbing the grade to the mansion on the hill; having reached the house he at once disappeared inside it and Manuello was again alone upon the hillside.

Gaining a point of vantage, Manuello looked down upon Havana Harbor, and, at once, decided upon the course that he must pursue to cover himself from danger of suspicion as to the possibility of his having participated in the terrible calamity that had befallen the United States battleship, for Manuello knew the exact location of the different ships then anchored in Havana Harbor as he had in his possession a map of it upon which he had drawn certain black crosses which indicated the positions of different vessels, also certain ingenious little flourishes told him the nationality of the various ships, so that he felt as sure as if he were right upon the scene that the battleship Maine had been blown up in Havana Harbor, that fateful evening, and he knew that there would be a searching investigation made as to what had caused the explosion, so that Manuello had this little problem to consider as well as the one concerning the sudden and mysterious death of Victorio Colenzo just as he was about to be liberated from the prison at San Domingo; for Manuello knew far more concerning that casualty than he had imparted to Estrella when she had so diligently inquired of him about it.